公正世界信念を持つ人々自身が犠牲者となった時、彼らがどのように反応するかに関する研究がある。Dr. Ronnie Janoff-Bulmanの論文によると、レイプの被害を受けた人は自分の行動や振る舞いに問題があったとしばしば自責の念に駆られるが、自分の内面的・外見的特徴に問題があったとすることは無い。一つの仮説として、そう考えた方が統制の所在をより自らの内側に取ることが出来るようになる、つまり、自分の性格や体格のせいなら事件はどうにもならなかった度合いが高いが、自分の行動が悪かったのなら事件は自分の行動次第で十分避けられたはずだった、事件は自己責任だった度合いがより高いことになるからだとする。These studies on victims of violence, illness, and poverty and others like them have provided consistent support for the link between observers' just-world beliefs and their tendency to blame victims for their suffering. As a result, the just-world hypothesis has become widely accepted.
More recently, researchers have explored how people react to poverty through the lens of the just-world hypothesis. Strong belief in a just world is associated with blaming the poor, with weak belief in a just world associated with identifying external causes of poverty including world economic systems, war, and exploitation.
Other researchers have found that observers judge sick people as responsible for their illnesses. One experiment showed that persons suffering from a variety of illnesses were derogated on a measure of attractiveness more than healthy individuals were. In comparison to healthy people, victim derogation was found for persons presenting with indigestion, pneumonia, and stomach cancer. Moreover, derogation was found to be higher for those suffering from severer illnesses, except for those presenting with cancer. Stronger belief in a just world has also been found to correlate with greater derogation of AIDS victims.
Researchers have employed the just-world hypothesis to understand bullying. Given other research on beliefs in a just world, it would be expected that observers would derogate and blame bullying victims, but the opposite has been found: individuals high in just-world belief have stronger anti-bullying attitudes. Other researchers have found that strong belief in a just world is associated with lower levels of bullying behavior. This finding is in keeping with Lerner's understanding of belief in a just world as functioning as a "contract" that governs behavior. There is additional evidence that belief in a just world is protective of the well-being of children and adolescents in the school environment, as has been shown for the general population.
Researchers have looked at how observers react to victims of rape and other violence. In a formative experiment on rape and belief in a just world by Linda Carli and colleagues, researchers gave two groups of subjects a narrative about interactions between a man and a woman. The description of the interaction was the same until the end; one group received a narrative that had a neutral ending and the other group received a narrative that ended with the man raping the woman. Subjects judged the rape ending as inevitable and blamed the woman in the narrative for the rape on the basis of her behavior, but not her characteristics. These findings have been replicated repeatedly, including using a rape ending and a 'happy ending' (a marriage proposal).Other researchers have found a similar phenomenon for judgments of battered partners. One study found that observers' labels of blame of female victims of relationship violence increase with the intimacy of the relationship. Observers blamed the perpetrator only in the most significant case of violence, in which a male struck an acquaintance.
After Lerner's first studies, other researchers replicated these findings in other settings in which individuals are victimized. This work, which began in the 1970s and continues today, has investigated how observers react to victims of random calamities like traffic accidents, as well as rape and domestic violence, illnesses, and poverty. Generally, researchers have found that observers of the suffering of innocent victims tend to both derogate and blame victims for their suffering. Observers thus maintain their belief in a just world by changing their cognitions about the victims' character.In the early 1970s, social psychologists Zick Rubin and Letitia Anne Peplau developed a measure of belief in a just world. This measure and its revised form published in 1975 allowed for the study of individual differences in just-world beliefs. Much of the subsequent research on the just-world hypothesis used these measurement scales.
Alternatively, victim derogation and other strategies may only be ways to alleviate discomfort after viewing suffering. This would mean that the primary motivation is not to restore a belief in a just world, but to reduce discomfort caused by empathizing.  Studies have shown that victim derogation does not suppress subsequent helping activity and that empathizing with the victim plays a large role when assigning blame. According to Ervin Staub devaluing the victim should lead to lesser compensation if restoring belief in a just world was the primary motive, instead there is virtually no difference in compensation amounts whether the compensation precedes or follows devaluation. Psychopathy has also been linked to the lack of just-world maintaining strategies, possibly due to dampened emotional reactions and lack of empathy.
公正世界仮説の研究初期のころに行われた、犠牲者非難に対しての別の説明は、被験者が自身の罪悪感を軽減するために被害者を非難するのだ、というものだった。被験者はその状況または実験に参加していることで道徳的な責任感や罪悪感を、被害者の苦痛に対して感じるのかもしれない。そこでその罪悪感を軽減するために被害者を貶めるのではないか、とした。ラーナーと共同研究者たちはこの解釈を支持する十分な証拠はない、とした。そして彼らは実験の過程に関与していない被験者、つまり被害者に罪悪感を感じる理由がない被験者であっても被害者への非難が起きた、という研究の存在を示した。
Y染色体のハプログループNは、現存のY染色体ハプログループの中で最も近縁のハプログループであるハプログループOとはKarmin et al. (2015)によれば41,900年（95% CI 40,175年～43,591年）前、Poznik et al. (2016)によれば44,700年あるいは38,300年前、YFull (2017)によれば36,800年 (95% CI 34,300年～39,300年)前に分岐をしたと推定されている。ハプログループNに属す現存のY染色体は20,000年前～25,000年前に東アジアにおいて分岐をし始めたと推定されており、ユーラシア北部、さらにはシベリアを横断して北欧まで分布を広げた。観察頻度はネネツ人に97%、 ガナサン人に92%、ヤクート人に88％、 フィン人に63%、チュクチ人に58% サーミ人に47%、エストニア人に41%、ユカギール人に31%、ロシア人に20%などである。ウラル語族との関連が想定される。フィン・ウゴル系にN1a1、サモエード系にN1a2が多い。遼河文明の遺跡人骨からもN1が60%以上の高頻度で見つかっており、かつては東アジア北部においても支配的であったと想定されるが、現在においては概ね10%程度の低頻度となっている。